German Published Patent Application No. 1 01 10 042.6 (not a prior publication) of Mar. 2, 2001 describes a distributed control and analysis system in motor vehicles, where decentralized control units (such as sensors having appropriate electronics for control and/or analysis) are connected to a central control unit via a point-to-point link for data exchange. A data line connects the central control unit to each decentralized unit; both the decentralized control units and the central control unit are designed for transmitting and receiving signals (data). No appropriate configuration of the transmission and reception device or the appropriate method of data transmission between these components is described in the aforementioned document. The preferred application refers to the field of environment sensors in motor vehicles, in particular radar sensor systems.